New Years Day

CALL TO WORSHIP

Come, old or young – or somewhere between! Come and worship the Lord. Come if you are sorrowful or rejoicing. Come, all who are ready to build and develop. Come, all who are searching or needing to let go. Come to share in the silence and the singing. Come everyone and worship the Lord.

Hymn 66: The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases

PRAYERS

Faithful God, we thank you for your presence with us. In trouble and in joy, you are always there. Help us to see where you were with us last year, and open our eyes to new opportunities in this new year. Faithful God, we thank you. Amen.

O Lord our God, how majestic is your name in all the earth, you have set your glory above the heavens; Lord of all eternity, mighty Saviour, you have given us a time for everything. We thank you for every season and time under heaven. You created everything. You have breathed life into all things. We worship and adore you. Amen.

Lord Jesus Christ, there are times when we have not done as we should: a time to embrace, to reach out – but we chose not to; a time to weep with others – but we chose not to; a time to laugh with others – but we chose not to; a time to plant – but we chose not to; a time to build up – but we chose not to; a time to remain silent – but we chose not to; a time to speak up – but we chose not to. Forgive us, we are sorry. Help us to recognise the times we need to be present, and the times we need to act. Give us the courage to not walk away. Amen.

Thank you, Lord, that for you it is always time to forgive. We are confident that you have forgiven us and restored us. You have made us whole. You have made all things new. Amen.

THE LORD’S PRAYER

Hymn 83: Praise my soul, the King of heaven

READING

Matthew 2: 13-23

13 When the Wise Men had left, Joseph had a dream. In the dream an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph. “Get up!” the angel said. “Take the child and his mother and escape to Egypt. Stay there until I tell you to come back. Herod is going to search for the child. He wants to kill him.”

14 So Joseph got up. During the night, he left for Egypt with the child and his mother Mary. 15 They stayed there until King Herod died. So the words the Lord had spoken through the prophet came true. He had said, “I brought my son out of Egypt.” (Hosea 11:1)

16 Herod realized that the Wise Men had tricked him. So he became very angry. He gave orders about Bethlehem and the area around it. He ordered all the boys two years old and under to be killed. This agreed with the time when the Wise Men had seen the star. 17 In this way, the words Jeremiah the prophet spoke came true. He had said,

18 “A voice is heard in Ramah. It’s the sound of crying and deep sadness. Rachel is crying over her children. She refuses to be comforted, because they are gone.” (Jeremiah 31:15)

Jesus’ Family Returns to Nazareth

19 After Herod died, Joseph had a dream while he was still in Egypt. In the dream an angel of the Lord appeared to him. 20 The angel said, “Get up! Take the child and his mother. Go to the land of Israel. The people who were trying to kill the child are dead.”

21 So Joseph got up. He took the child and his mother Mary back to the land of Israel. 22 But then he heard that Archelaus was king of Judea. Archelaus was ruling in place of his father Herod. This made Joseph afraid to go there. Joseph had been warned in a dream. So, he went back to the land of Galilee instead. 23 There he lived in a town called Nazareth. So, what the prophets had said about Jesus came true. They had said that he would be called a Nazarene.

Hymn 519: Father. I place into your hands

SERMON

My favourite film at Christmas has to be a Christmas Carol, much to the annoyance of Karon I will watch several different versions I just think it is a great redemption story the crusty old Scrooge which is still used as a nickname for a mean person, although at the end of the film, book or radio. The last line goes something like.

“He held Christmas in his heart all year long”

Life after Christmas can be one of the best, and one of the worst, times of the year. It’s that strange time that often never meets our expectations. After weeks of preparation, hanging all the lights, decorating the house, wrapping all the presents, planning the meals, sending all the Christmas cards, Christmas comes and goes. We wake up and before we know it Christmas has arrived and departed. And for all the prep that we do, our expectations can almost never be met perfectly. We never receive all the gifts we want; we never have the perfect time with our family often with fights and arguments, we never get to experience God and faith exactly the way we expect and hope for. Life after Christmas can be a real shock if we’re not ready for it. We build up this wonderful holiday moment through the songs on the radio, through the worship services of Advent, and even with the sales promotions at all of our favourite stores.

It’s no wonder there are more incidents of hospitalisations for depression, and attempts at suicide during the next few weeks, than any other time during the year. For all the joy that we muster together on Christmas Eve, life after Christmas can hit hard and low.

Life after Christmas for Jesus was filled with trial and tribulation as well. In the wake of his birth in one of the most inhospitable of places, after the visit of the Magi at this time Jesus may have been around two years old and after the visit the family fled to Egypt to avoid the rage of Herod. It is curious that we have very little detail regarding Herod’s desire to kill all of the children in Bethlehem, only that he was infuriated by the deception of the wise men. a

It seems, that Herod feared for the loss of his position of power and control, and he then decided to eradicate this supposed “Messiah king” that could usurp his power.

If we only read this story on the surface, hearing about the new family’s retreat to Egypt, their patient waiting for Herod’s death, and their inevitable return, we are then we are stuck with the devastating imagery of Rachel weeping for the children, the imagery of Herod killing innocents’ babies in Bethlehem, and a family’s terrifying experience of fear and isolation as they flee to a foreign land. But the story contains so much more. In Matthew’s gospel, Jesus comes to be understood as the new Moses. He will deliver a sermon on the mount with his commands for the ways we are to live our lives, just as Moses stood on the mountaintop to deliver the ten commandments to the wandering Hebrews. It is important for Jesus to be understood through a Mosaic lens because he will also deliver the people out of slavery – not slavery in Egypt to foreign pharaohs, but out of slavery to sin and death.

Here, in this story, we get the beginnings of Jesus’ connections with Moses.

During the time of Moses’ birth, the Pharaoh in Egypt, became concerned because of the increase of the Hebrew people so, he had all of the young males murdered in order to keep control over the Hebrew slaves. It was during this child massacre that Moses was saved by his mother. In a similar way, Jesus was saved from Herod’s massacre of the children because of the warning from God. Just as Moses would come to lead the Hebrew slaves out of Egypt toward the Promised Land, Jesus would eventually return to Galilee from Egypt in order to begin his ministry.

I wonder what it must have felt like for Mary and Joseph to raise that baby under such circumstances; to be told to leave all that was familiar, to enter a foreign land, because a ruler wanted to see your baby murdered. I wonder what could’ve sustained them through the days, weeks, months, and years of unknowing, the periods of fear and isolation.

Can we reflect on all people today who are driven from all they have known, giving everything have, as they seek refuge elsewhere?

Christmas, for us, is the reflection of that great event where God came to be with us. That time of year where we attempt to set aside all of our disappointments from the past and look forward to that new beginning that we can bring into our own lives.

Why is life after Christmas less ecstatic than the weeks leading up to it? Why do we let ourselves fall into states of sadness and the blues when we were just singing Joy to the World, and Angels We Have Heard On High? What is it about this time that makes it so much harder to get out of bed every morning, and get back into the routines of life?

Life after Christmas is almost never easy; not for us now, not for that family driving home, and it certainly wasn’t easy for Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. As we continue to step forward into this uncertain time let’s not hold fast to the decorations, and the pomp and circumstance, and the presents, and the meals, and all the other elements that make Christmas what it appears to be, but instead let us hold fast to the hymns we sang together as a church, let us hold fast to the fact that Christ is the light of the world that shines in the darkness, let us hold fast to the faith that we have in Jesus Christ as the Lord of all.

When you really get down to it, Christmas isn’t just a day, or even a time of year that we celebrate. As a faithful community, Christmas happens every single time we gather together. Every worship service, every bible study, every single thing we do for a cause we support, every Men’s club meeting, everything we do should reflect the Christmas message for us. To be the church, to be the body of Christ for the world, means that we are continuously celebrating the fact that the greatest thing that ever came to be, came to be with us.

The fact that God humbled himself to be like us, for us, and with us, surmounts everything else in the world. For all the disappointments that we might face, for all of the ways we have fallen short of God’s glory, nothing will ever compare to the love of God in Jesus Christ manifested in a man’s life who changed the world.

It is okay to feel hurt and sad during life after Christmas. It is okay to feel the emotional tide that comes and goes while we rest in the awkward time after celebration. But we must never forget that though death, and suffering, and fear are real, they do not have the final word. God’s glory and grace surpasses all things. God’s love for you is eternal, it extends beyond all things, and is present in the ways that we love one another. Jesus, our Moses, came to deliver us from the bonds of the world, to help transform the way we live, and to share with us life eternal.

And so, If we take seriously the faith that we confess in Christ, then life after Christmas should really be the most wonderful time of the year.

Amen.

OFFERING DURING HYMN

Hymn 238: Lead us, heavenly Father, lead us

PRAYERS OF THANKSGIVING AND INTERCESSION

Lord Jesus, we give you thanks and praise that you are always with us, no matter what. When we are rejoicing, you are with us. When we are weeping, you are with us. When we are mourning, you are with us. When we need to speak up, you are with us, When we need to remain silent, you are with us. Thank you that a time is coming when there will be no more death and no more pain, no more tears and no more sadness – because you are making all things new. Thank you, that you are a faithful God who lives beyond the bounds of time, always close, never far away. Amen.

For the times when we are sick: may we have healing. For the times when we are isolated: may we have company. For the times when we are oppressed: may we have justice. For the times when we are exposed: may we have dignity. For the times when we are mistreated: may we have humanity. For the times when we are ignored: may we be heard. For the times when we ignore, or isolate, or oppress, or expose or mistreat: may we change. Amen.

Hymn 39: Angel voices ever singing

BLESSING